I am interested in thinking of animation like sculpture, as a way of abstracting space. Animation invites weight and form to become elastic. It also invents a new, sometimes rigid, logic of cartoon space (Wile E. Coyote runs off a cliff, and only falls once he realizes there is nothing beneath his feet). I’m curious about the ways these conventions describe a poetic or abstract space.

My animations are also about storytelling. I’m interested in stories that take the shape of a spiral. From its inception, animation has relied on looping motions to extend action. Early animation is particularly dependent on gags repeated, doubled over on themselves. Many of my animations contain some looping action, either in visual or narrative form. These loops echo stories that are formed by the accumulation of routines. They trace stories that, like waking in the morning, seem to end where they began.

I’m curious about routines that begin to outline larger stories. They are often about the ways loss finds form in the grooves worn into daily life. Like a hole thrown on a cartoon wall, they make physical what is only an absence.

A friend recently told me about a butcher shop in Albuquerque. It’s so old, he said, that customers have worn an indentation into the floor where they stand in line for service. I hope these animations can be like that sloping floor.